MY Place launches membership drive

Theres a new club coming to town and it offers its members the chance to impact Whistler in the arts, culture, child and youth care and activities, music, health, and numerous other ventures.

It will be open to everyone  long term residents, newcomers, young adults and the seasoned senior.

"We want people to join," said Stephen Milstein, chair of the Maurice Young Millennium Place Society.

Creating a membership base for Millennium Place is all part of a re-organization of the governing structure of the facility.

By creating members it is hoped that even more enthusiasm will be brought to the activities of the centre, which grew 35 per cent in bookings last year, and new sources of money, such as lottery funds, will also become available.

Last year Millennium Place applied for a lottery grant of $152,000 but because of the organizational structure of the governing body it did not qualify for the money.

Now the board of directors will be expanded from 11 to 13 members, seven of whom will be elected by the new membership.

The other six members will be nominated by various sectors of the community.

This new structure will make Millennium Place eligible for among other things, lottery grants.

The role of the nominated board members, said Milstein, will be to reflect the needs and concerns of a segment of the community, not the organization they are working for.

For example, a Whistler-Blackcomb representative would be there to put forward interests of the large segment of the population employed by the mountains, not the company itself.

"There have been two very significant changes," said Milstein, who hopes to step down as chair at the next election.

"One is that we no longer have stakeholder organizations. Now there are groups in the community that we go to who we know represent key sectors of the community and we have asked them to find someone that they are going to offer up to us that our board will accept or not accept. They will represent the views of that segment of the community. They dont represent that organization, they dont represent that segment, they can represent those views."

Rob Schwartz, general manager of Millennium Place is excited about creating a membership.

"This is a very unique place to be a member of," said Schwartz.

"I cant think of any other organization in Whistler where you could become a member and truly impact the community in any number of ways.